Images are the new real estate, maximize ROI from every pixel with ‘hotspots’.
They say that a picture speaks a thousand words, however, it helps if we can prod people towards the intended message or context. A creative developed for a marketing campaign, irrespective of whether it goes on a website, emailer, or on social media, carries the dual burden of conveying an overarching message and initiating a Call To Action (CTA). This CTA may be a direct purchase, a product demo, a request to follow the company on social media or whatever the marketer deems the need of the hour.
What if we told you, that we could measure the effectiveness of an image, in cold hard numbers. Yes, similar to how we track Open rates, CTRs and CPIs on a social or emailer campaign. Most marketers would die for such a tool that helps them quantify the impact of an image. It could lead to a whole new kind of A/B testing for images, based on the metric of ‘contextual interactions’.
We’ve invented a way to track the impact of an image in the most user/content friendly way possible. We call them ‘hotspots’, it’s a simple concept, creating clickable highlights on relevant parts of the picture to enrich it with context, URLs or annotations.
Take, for example, this picture taken from Ikea’s Instagram page. How much more effective would this image be, if each of the products showcased in the room such as the rug, the bedspread, the mirror or the lamp could be embedded with an add to cart option linked to the Ikea app. It would be possible to assign a dedicated CTA to any chosen portion of the image.
Hotspots are the perfect solution for companies looking to showcase their products in a context-sensitive manner. This works great for furniture stores, interior design companies, clothing stores, fittings and furnishings and almost any other retail environment. Retail establishments can create rich visuals for their websites, emailers, product catalogues to make their products come to life in their natural environment.
These hotspots can then be embedded with context, such as blurbs about the product, a purchase link, or even a dedicated microsite. Every pixel on the image can be used to speak volumes
The marketer can also decide to change the content/context of the images according to the CTA and campaign goals. For example, they could include a direct link to purchase if they have an online store or a link to a physical location to increase footfall at a physical store, the applications are only limited by the marketer’s imagination.
We believe that the old adage needs a bit of work, an (enriched) picture speaks a thousand words, that’s why we’re redefining how companies and marketers look at ‘images’ as part of their communication strategy. ‘Context’ is essential in any conversation be it text or image, we’re driving the revolution for the visual medium.
